It is but due to her character to say, that in
conjunction with her estimable husband, she had broken many and many
a one.

Miss Fanny Squeers carefully treasured up this, and much more
conversation on the same subject, until she retired for the night,
when she questioned the hungry servant, minutely, regarding the
outward appearance and demeanour of Nicholas; to which queries the
girl returned such enthusiastic replies, coupled with so many
laudatory remarks touching his beautiful dark eyes, and his sweet
smile, and his straight legs--upon which last-named articles she
laid particular stress; the general run of legs at Dotheboys Hall
being crooked--that Miss Squeers was not long in arriving at the
conclusion that the new usher must be a very remarkable person, or,
as she herself significantly phrased it, 'something quite out of the
common.' And so Miss Squeers made up her mind that she would take a
personal observation of Nicholas the very next day.

In pursuance of this design, the young lady watched the opportunity
of her mother being engaged, and her father absent, and went
accidentally into the schoolroom to get a pen mended: where, seeing
nobody but Nicholas presiding over the boys, she blushed very
deeply, and exhibited great confusion.

'Mr Squeers is out,' said Nicholas, by no means overcome by the
apparition, unexpected though it was.

'Do you know will he be long, sir?' asked Miss Squeers, with bashful
hesitation.

'He said about an hour,' replied Nicholas--politely of course, but
without any indication of being stricken to the heart by Miss
Squeers's charms.

'I never knew anything happen so cross,' exclaimed the young lady.
'Thank you! I am very sorry I intruded, I am sure. If I hadn't
thought my father was here, I wouldn't upon any account have--it is
very provoking--must look so very strange,' murmured Miss Squeers,
blushing once more, and glancing, from the pen in her hand, to
Nicholas at his desk, and back again.

'If that is all you want,' said Nicholas, pointing to the pen, and
smiling, in spite of himself, at the affected embarrassment of the
schoolmaster's daughter, 'perhaps I can supply his place.'

Miss Squeers glanced at the door, as if dubious of the propriety of
advancing any nearer to an utter stranger; then round the
schoolroom, as though in some measure reassured by the presence of
forty boys; and finally sidled up to Nicholas and delivered the pen
into his hand, with a most winning mixture of reserve and
condescension.

'Shall it be a hard or a soft nib?' inquired Nicholas, smiling to
prevent himself from laughing outright.

'He HAS a beautiful smile,' thought Miss Squeers.

'Which did you say?' asked Nicholas.

'Dear me, I was thinking of something else for the moment, I
declare,' replied Miss Squeers. 'Oh! as soft as possible, if you
please.' With which words, Miss Squeers sighed. It might be, to
give Nicholas to understand that her heart was soft, and that the
pen was wanted to match.

Upon these instructions Nicholas made the pen; when he gave it to
Miss Squeers, Miss Squeers dropped it; and when he stooped to pick
it up, Miss Squeers stopped also, and they knocked their heads
together; whereat five-and-twenty little boys laughed aloud: being
positively for the first and only time that half-year.

'Very awkward of me,' said Nicholas, opening the door for the young
lady's retreat.

'Not at all, sir,' replied Miss Squeers; 'it was my fault. It was
all my foolish--a--a--good-morning!'

'Goodbye,' said Nicholas. 'The next I make for you, I hope will be
made less clumsily. Take care! You are biting the nib off now.'

'Really,' said Miss Squeers; 'so embarrassing that I scarcely know
what I--very sorry to give you so much trouble.'

'Not the least trouble in the world,' replied Nicholas, closing the
schoolroom door.

'I never saw such legs in the whole course of my life!' said Miss
Squeers, as she walked away.